Telesat reports net loss of $530 million in year-end results, adds military Ka-band to LEO constellation

Telesat Corp. lost more than $530 million in net income in 2025, a 75 per cent increase in lost income from the previous year’s $302 million hole, according to the company’s year-end results, released on March 17. In an investors call on Tuesday, CFO Donald Tremblay partly attributed the cratering to a 27 per cent decrease in revenue year-over-year – $418 million, down from $571 million, as well as reduced EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), which was $213 million compared to 2024’s $384 million. Tremblay also attributed the losses to impairment of goodwill relating to its geostationary (GEO) satellite business. Both the basic and diluted net income loss per common share was $10.61, a 69 per cent increase in lost income per share year-over-year. For the fourth quarter ending on Dec. 31, consolidated revenue was $94 million, a 26 per cent decrease year-over-year. A press release on Tuesday morning said the decrease was due to “rate and capacity reductions by certain of our North American DTH customers and lower revenue from enterprise customers serving rural broadband customers.” But the operating expenses for the same period were down 14 per cent to $50 million, and net loss for the quarter was down to $433 million, compared to the previous year’s $447 million. In the investors call, president and CEO Dan Goldberg said the company’s GEO satellite business faces “structural challenges,” but came in above the adjusted EBITDA guidance for last year. He also said within the constraints of what is “essentially a fixed-cost business,” Telesat has “optimized our cost structure where we can to maximize the cash flow of that business.” Goldberg said he is “very pleased” with the “significant” progress made on Lightspeed, Telesat’s low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation project. In a separate press release from Tuesday morning, Telesat announced it would be adding 500 MHz of military Ka-band (Mil-Ka) spectrum to the 156 satellites in the constellation “to meet the fast-growing global requirements of allied defence users.” The release said while governments have long relied on GEO Mil-Ka technology, Telesat is seeing increased investments in programs that leverage the advantages of LEO systems. “We’re seeing very significant global demand for a Mil‑Ka LEO satellite capability as governments respond to recent geopolitical developments and recognize the clear operational advantages offered by advanced LEO constellations,” said Goldberg in a statement. “By integrating it with the already highly advanced Telesat Lightspeed network, the Telesat Mil-Ka capability is expected to have meaningfully superior performance characteristics relative to the Mil-Ka platforms that allied governments have historically relied upon. This is an important development and one that underscores Telesat’s decades-long commitment to support the mission critical requirements of allied defence users,” he continued. At the time of this writing, Telesat’s stock has seen a sharp increase since the market opening on Tuesday. In an emailed statement to The Wire Report, Caleb Henry, director of research for Quilty Space, a company aiming to help provide decision makers with financial and strategic insights needed to navigate the space economy, said investors seem to be responding positively to the Mil-Ka augmentation. “This augmentation comes at a time of rising defense budgets and a Canadian federal government that is championing Telesat as a resource for allied countries,” he wrote. “Mil-Ka also gives Lightspeed meaningful differentiation from other LEO constellations, like Starlink and Amazon, which may give investors more confidence about Telesat’s ability to compete against larger peers.” Telesat’s press release also said Mil-Ka is directly adjacent to the commercial Ka-band spectrum used by Lightspeed, and will therefore have only a “modest” impact on the project’s cost and no change to its timeline. However, in the investors call, Goldberg did announce a slip in the project’s timeline, but not because of the Mil-Ka addition. Goldberg said the first two satellites are still planned for launch in December, and the company has a “very heavy” launch cadence planned through 2027. While the project was initially planned to be in full global commercial service at the end of 2027, due to a change in the readiness of the chips that power the on-board processors, Telesat is now eyeing early 2028 for its full service launch. mcollins@thewirereport.ca

Telesat reports net loss of $530 million in year-end results, adds military Ka-band to LEO constellation

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By Maria Collins
|March 17, 2026

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Telesat reports net loss of $530 million in year-end results, adds military Ka-band to LEO constellation

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